Into the Storm

by Susan Fanetti

  “You are gonna get yourself in water you can’t swim out of, dressed like that here.”

  She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Dressed like what?”

  “Like you’re here to work.”

  Her face froze for a second in a state of perfect shock, and then it hardened into anger. “God! Go to hell, asshole.” She pushed hard at his chest. He didn’t move. She went around him and stormed off, deeper into the room. He watched her, saw her find Badger, and then he turned and went back to the bar. He grabbed the bottle of Jack and headed outside. It was cold out there, but he needed the fresh air.

  He’d been out there fifteen minutes, brooding about his vexatious inability to stop thinking about this woman he barely knew, when the door opened and released the din of the party into the autumn air. He didn’t turn around; he figured it was somebody coming or going, and he didn’t give a fuck. He’d drained the Jack, but he wasn’t ready to go back in, so he sat there on top of the round, redwood picnic table, smoking and scowling into the night.

  “What is your problem?”

  At Shannon’s sharp question he turned to see her standing there, holding her arms across her body against the chill. The stance made her cleavage even more distracting.

  “What?” He tossed his butt to the ground.

  She took a couple of steps closer. He could reach out and touch her if he wanted, run his finger down the cleft between her breasts. He clenched his fists.

  “You have to know I’m interested. You act like you have some kind of claim or responsibility or I don’t know what. But then you ignore me—or you don’t, and you say what you said in there. What the hell is your problem?”

  “No problem. Just not interested.”

  Her brow creased at that, and her eyes narrowed. Then she surprised the shit out of him by taking the last step between them and grabbing his face in her hands. She leaned in and kissed him, her lips silky on his, her mouth open. She tasted of tequila. He felt her tongue tracing his lower lip. He hadn’t had a woman’s mouth—her tongue!—on his mouth in…Christ, five years? Since Holly would even let him kiss her like this? His cock turned to cast iron, heavy and hard, and it was all he could do not to grab her. But he didn’t. He didn’t grab her, or kiss her back. He sat there, feeling shocked and tormented.

  When she pulled away, she searched his eyes for a moment. Then, with a sad little twitch of her lip, she nodded. “Okay. Sorry.” She turned and went back into the clubhouse.

  Show sat on the table, his mind racing and his blood churning. He did not want that. He did not. He had nothing to give her, and he would not—could not—use her. She was more than that. He could only hurt her. He could only let her down. He was empty.

  He rubbed his eyes, trying to erase the image of her standing there with her cleavage over her arms and her nipples hard from the cold. He rubbed his mouth, trying to erase the lingering touch of her lips on his. His cock throbbed, and his chest ached. Fuck. Fuck. He threw the empty Jack bottle, and it crashed on the lot at some distance into the dark.

  Then he stood and stalked back into the clubhouse.

  She was standing at the bar, between Vic and Havoc, doing shots. Bart and Len were at the bar, too, cheering her on. A bolt of anger tightened his jaw. Ten minutes ago she’d been pushing up on him—now she was taking all comers? He stormed over and grabbed her arm, pulling her through the Hall and away from his brothers before she could say or do anything to stop him. He got her as far as the dorm hallway before she could pull him back.

  “Show! What the hell?”

  He turned and pushed her against the wall. “I told you this was trouble tonight. You got no idea what you’re getting into out there.”

  “What the hell do you care? You’re not interested, remember? You should remember, asshole. You just said it like a minute ago.” She shoved at him, but he still had her upper arms caught in his fists. Her chest was heaving, pushing her breasts against his chest with every inhale.

  She was drunk—her eyes were soft focus, and her legs less than perfectly steady. He was drunk, too, for that matter. Only explanation for the insanity that had taken him over. But it had taken him over, and he finally gave up and just let it have him. He bent down and kissed her.

  Drunk and angry, he didn’t come in gentle. His fists were still wrapped around her arms, and he pulled her up as his head came down, slamming over her mouth—her hot, firm, soft mouth. Fuck. After a moment of surprised stillness, she responded, opened to him. He took the offer and pushed his tongue between her lips. She moaned, and he felt the vibration of it against his tongue and straight down to his cock.

  So goddamn long. Nine years since he’d fucked a woman—since right after Iris was born, and Holly told him that sex had begun to hurt her. Five years since he’d kissed a woman. Nearly that long since he’d even been in the same bed with one. Eventually, when it became clear that Holly was permanently off limits, she told him she wouldn’t complain if he got head at the club. And he’d occasionally partaken, always feeling depressed and somehow degraded by it. Since Daze, though, he’d had no interest at all. Him and his hand, alone together.

  But he was standing here, in the dorm hallway, leaning into this beautiful, soft, moaning woman, her tongue moving with his. He forgot his anger, his confusion. He forgot his grief. He forgot that he was empty. He let go of her arms and cupped his hands around her face instead, holding her mouth tightly to his. Her arms now free, they snaked up his chest and around his neck.

  He broke away and looked down into her eyes. Big, deep blue eyes that sparked with wit. He’d always had a hard time meeting them—it felt like she could see deeper into him than he could stand. Now, they were half-shielded by her eyelids, rimmed with long, dark lashes, but they still bored into him.

  “You look at me like you see something.” He drew his thumbs over her cheekbones and felt the swell as she smiled.

  “I do.”

  “No. Nothing to see.”

  She blinked and her eyes cleared and opened fully. “That’s not true, Show. I see kindness. Strength. And sorrow.” One hand slid from his neck, and she put her fingers over his mouth and through his beard. “When I look at you, I can feel you. I don’t know why.” She’d slurred her words ever so slightly, but her gaze was steady and serious, and everything in his chest clenched.

  He bent down again and covered her mouth with his, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her body to him. She matched his intensity, exceeding it, closing her lips and teeth on his tongue and sucking. He grunted and grabbed her ass. But he couldn’t feel her up in the fucking hallway. She deserved more than that. She wasn’t club pussy.

  “I want to take you back to my room.”

  Without hesitation, she nodded. “Yes. Yes.”

  He wrapped his hand around her arm again and led her back.

  He ushered her in and closed the door behind them, turning the lock. She went immediately to the bed and began taking her clothes off, pulling her shimmery top out of her skirt. With two long strides, he reached her and grabbed her hands.

  “No. Let me do it.” She relaxed. Her hands were in his. They were warm and soft—and so small, fine boned. He lifted her left hand; his thumb filled the center of her palm. Transfixed, he watched as he traced a circle over her smooth skin. Then she curled her fingers around his thick digit. Her nails were oval and polished a dark red, almost brown. On her middle finger, she wore a large gold ring with an odd, multi-colored stone. He’d noticed before that she wore a ring, but had never paid it much mind. Now, fascinated by her skin on his, he turned her hand and ran his thumb over the long, smooth stone.

  “Pretty.”

  “Thank you.” After a beat during which he continued staring at her hand, watching his thumb move over her knuckles, she whispered, “Show…”

  He raised his eyes to hers. Her expression was patient and open, looking up at him. She licked her lips, lightly dragging her tongue, and then her teeth, over her lower lip. Hot a
s hell.

  Show no longer felt drunk. He knew he was, but his head felt clear, as if the drink had shut down the noise, the demons and doubts, and left him alone in a room with this gorgeous woman. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  Shannon whimpered—a tiny, lost sound—and then turned her hand and stretched her fingers over his jaw, her thumb on his mouth. He closed his eyes against the emotion he felt at her touch. Without thinking about it, he sucked her thumb between his teeth, biting down lightly on the knuckle. When he released her thumb, she wrapped her hand around his beard and pulled his head down. He grabbed her hips and brought her hard against him, covering her mouth with his and kissing her as hard as he could, as hard as he remembered kissing any woman, his tongue deep and searching. She moaned into his mouth and grabbed his kutte in her fists.

  To have a woman in his arms again, a woman like this, soft and beautiful and wanting him—it was more than he could feel all at once. He’d missed it; of course he had. He’d had nights, even lying in the same room as his wife, where the loneliness had lain so heavy on his chest he’d thought he wouldn’t be able to draw the next breath, and the idea that there was no end in sight to it, that he and Holly would always be locked in that shadowy space of dead love, had made his whole body cramp. But until this moment, feeling like this, this excitement, for the first time in years, he hadn’t fully realized how hollow his life had been, long before he’d lost his family.

  Getting sucked off by a club whore was nothing but physical release, beginning and ending with his cock. What he’d missed was this—the warm, pliant firmness of a female body, the slight tremor of desire, real desire, he could feel under her skin. The quickening of her hot breath when he moved his hand from her hip and slid it under her top. The way her belly twitched at the contact of his hand.

  He broke away from her mouth and brushed her silky red hair off her shoulder so he could press his face against her neck. He could feel her pulse beating against his cheek. And she smelled fantastic, like…he didn’t know what. Spicy, maybe. Just good, whatever it was. Her hands had gone to his back and hooked over his shoulders. As he held her and breathed deep of her, his mouth on her soft skin, tasting her, he could feel her grip tightening.

  “Show, please.”

  He pulled away at once and looked down into her lovely eyes. “You want to stop?”

  She laughed. “No, dummy. I want you to take my clothes off. Like you advertised.” She kicked off her shoes and was suddenly several inches shorter—but still tall, coming up to his shoulders.

  He grinned. His cheeks felt stiff, unused to the expression. With a quick glance at her top, he determined that there were no buttons, so he grabbed the hem and pulled it over her head. When she was clear of it, she shook her hair out, the small gold hoops in her ears swinging.

  She was wearing an elaborate bra, very low cut, in dark green lace. Christ. Those big, beautiful tits were wrapped up for him like Christmas. He put his hands over them, running his thumbs over her nipples. His balls clenched hard when he felt those round points and heard her gasp. She reached for the waistband of her skirt, but he grabbed her hands again and moved them away. He wanted to undress her. This was more than foreplay. This was a homecoming. He needed to reacquaint himself with what he’d lost.

  He found a zipper on the side of the skirt and pulled it down. The dark fabric eased off her lush hips, and she stepped out of it. Show discovered that the green lace was a set, and she was wearing panties to match, low across her hips. Her body was amazing—her hips, her belly curving just right and firm but supple to the touch, her tits sumptuous and her nipples erect through the fancy lace. Her legs and arms were long. Her skin was pale and perfect. She had no ink that he could see, no piercings but her ears.

  “Christ, you’re gorgeous. You know that?”

  She only smiled, then pushed his kutte off his shoulders. He caught it as it reached his elbows, then pulled it the rest of the way off and laid it on the dresser nearby. Even now, he didn’t drop his kutte. When she’d worked open the buttons on his shirt, she pushed that off, too, and he let it drop to the floor. His beater was next; he helped her discard it.

  She stopped then, her eyes wide and intent, and spread her hands over his chest. Fuck, her touch—satin on his skin. He closed his eyes and made himself breathe steadily as she ran her hands over his chest, his shoulders, his arms, his belly.

  “God, Show. You’re like…I don’t know. A statue. A Rodin.” She reached up then and pinched at his beanie, pulling it off his head. When it was loose in her hand, he tossed his head, clearing the strands from his face. She laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I figured you were hiding a bald spot under this thing.”

  “Nope. Full head.” He smiled.

  “I see that. It’s nice.” She ran her fingers through it, her nails lightly scratching his scalp, and he thought his knees would give. He pulled the beanie from her hand and dropped it, then pushed her onto the bed. She scooted back and watched as he toed off his boots and socks and lay down with her, still in his jeans.

  He was in no hurry. Leaning over her, propped on his forearm, he took her mouth again, reveling in the tangle of their tongues and in the sweet sound of her little moans and whimpers. He felt the pull as she coiled his hair in her hand.

  With his free hand, he cupped the full mound of a breast, still wrapped in lace. She arched up into his touch, and he slid his hand under the lace to pluck at her nipple. She tore her mouth from his with a gasp, and her hips pushed hard against his thigh. He could feel the heat between her legs. He claimed her mouth again.

  Maybe he was in more of a hurry than he thought.

  Moving his hand to her back, he tried to unhook her bra. Back in his tomcatting days, there wasn’t a bra in the world he couldn’t release with one hand—hell, with two fingers. But this one, no. He struggled for a few seconds, until Shannon chuckled against his lips and reached back herself. He lifted up so she could pull the bra off her arms; she tossed it away with a flourish.

  And there they were, bare and perfect, her areolae large and blush pink, the skin taut with her arousal. Feeling a need growing desperate, he bent his head and took one in his mouth, not trying to be gentle, sucking her nipple firmly against his teeth.

  She cried out, her back arching sharply, her hands snarling in his hair. “Oh, God! Oh, Show, yes!”

  At her enthusiastic response, he shifted to lie on top of her, propped on his elbows so he wouldn’t crush her, and lavished starving attention on her phenomenal tits. She writhed and moaned, sounding as if she might cry, her hands in his hair, holding him close. Her hips flexed over and over, pressing her hot, lace-covered core against his belly again and again, and he had no idea how he’d gone so fucking long without this.

  He couldn’t go any longer.

  He pushed himself off the bed and stood staring down into her eyes as he opened his jeans, pushed them down, off his granite-hard cock, and let them fall. Her eyes slid down from his face, flaring when they reached the level of his hips.

  He put his knee on the bed, his cock nearly reaching out for her. Hooking his fingers under the lace of her panties, he yanked them down with one swift pull, dropping them to the floor when he got them clear of her slim ankles. Her toenails were polished to match her fingernails. He grinned. She was a little bit of a glamourpuss.

  Shannon spread her legs in invitation, and he stretched out against her, pushing his hand between her legs. She was hot and wet—and a natural redhead, her ginger curls trimmed short and shaped into a neat wedge. But she gasped and jumped a little at his touch, and he stopped and looked.

  “That hurt you?”

  “No. It’s just—your hands are rough.”

  “Want me to stop?”

  “No. I like it.”

  He flicked the pad of his thumb over her clit, and her hips came off the bed. “You like that?” She nodded.

  He pushed a finger deep inside her, and she
gasped and bounced. “That?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He pulled out and added a finger. She cried out. She was so wet that he could feel it trickling down his fingers to his palm. He curled his fingers inside her, pressing against her inner wall. “That?”

  “Yes! God, Show. Make me come. Please, make me come.”

  He didn’t know how long he’d last inside her. So many years. He didn’t want to humiliate himself or disappoint her. He wanted to make sure she got off, and well. “You want it hard?”

  This time she only nodded, spreading her legs wider. He gave her what she said she wanted, fucking her hard with his coarse hand, his thumb at her clit, his fingers slamming into her. She writhed and flexed, keening, until the keens became screams, and she sat up, driving herself down, fucking herself with his hand, her eyes on his, wide with what looked like surprise. Then she dropped back down to the pillows all at once, and he stopped as she still spasmed around his drenched fingers.

  He grinned. Like riding a bicycle. He rolled over her and grabbed his cock.

  And remembered what he was forgetting. Fuck!

  “I don’t have condoms. Goddammit!” No way he was going around the clubhouse hunting one up. Not even for this. He pushed himself up onto his knees, preparing to get up, but she grabbed his arm.

  “Stay. I’m on the Pill.” Still breathless, she gasped the words out.

  He stared down at her. They’d both be taking a risk—that she was telling the truth, and that they were both clean. He was, of course, but she couldn’t know that. They barely knew each other. But in some way, that wasn’t true. Maybe it was just the effects of the whiskey, but Show didn’t think so. Something about this woman, on some elemental level, was known to him. Only explanation he could think of for the way he felt, why she’d gotten to him, past the deadwood. He trusted her.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. I want you inside me. God, I really do.”

  Her words were like a hand around his cock, and he dropped over her again, holding himself against her core, feeling her wet on his tip. She closed her eyes and nodded as he pushed into her. Christ, she was so damn tight. He hadn’t expected her to squeeze him like that.